As always in Welch's poetry is the marriage between the inner life of man and the outer
life of the natural world. Welch refers to his poems as "animalizations" and what he is
most concerned with are "the country things of Nebraska." In his best earlier work,
The Keeper of Miniature Deer and Carved by Obadiah Verity, Welch seeks to
not only find man's place in the world, but to explore as well his relationship with it
and in it. ... Welch has said that "the older literary world often vied with contemporary
subjects. I eventually married the two worlds in poems about animals, imaginary animals.
Knowing about history has led me into bestiaries of all kinds, and knowing about living
animals enables me to hold onto a realistic base." Welch has opened up some of the more
interesting bestiaries of Nebraska poetry with his "animalizations." The Breeder of
Arhcangels and A Requirem for Stanley Smith is guaranteed to stay, like Stanley
Smith's smokeless shadow, on both your mind and your tongue.  Eric Hoffman,
Nebraska Territory

Don Welch moves among the poor like a modern day Whitman who has mastered
the fine art of pruning. The poor, he says, "need the dump and truck of
love / to walk on too." With a minimum of words he evokes a maximum of
feelings and sympathies. The rest of us need the poet's words to bring us
those places we have neither the time nor the courage to explore.
 Bill Kloefkorn

This "selected poems" collects together, for the first time, his most
essential and strongest work. Welch is one of the Great Plains' best
word-crafters,
careful and loving of language in the tradition of Wallace Stevens but,
dirt mystic that he is, rooted to his world like Robert Frost. He is a
poet whose work truly deserves national attention and praise. 
from the jacket

I came to poetry late, in my
early forties, and I began by
writing about things I knew, the country things of
Nebraska. Because I am a college
professor of English, the older, literary world often
vied with contemporary subjects. I
eventually married the two worlds in poems about
animals, imaginary animals.
Knowing about history led me into bestiaries of all
kinds, and knowing about living
animals enabled me to hold onto a realistic base.
These poems, which I call
"animalizations," have preoccupied me for some time
and probably will for two or
three more years. They are one sign that I am writing
about less regional subjects
than in the past.  from the poet

From the first poem, "Carved By Obadiah Verity," to the final one,
"The Barn Owl,"
the theme of family prevails; it is a strong power in almost every poem.
It is movingly presaged in the “carving of decoys from heartwood" by
Obadiah in "that place of/breed, and brood, and cross-hatching" and last
until the closing
poem when we hear "our mother's territorial voice/calling us from the
backsteps." ...
One feels in it a "vibfany" in the universe, particularized in the
family,
and revealed in the tgenderness of the keeper.  Anita Norman,
Nebrsaka Library Association Quarterly, Summer 1986

Don Welch is one of those many talented American poets who have never received as much attention as they deserve. His poems are distinguished by the meticulous
care he puts into writing them, and by their deep intelligence.  Ted Kooser, United States Poet Laureate, 2004-2006

... Welch's work over the years has clearly achieved major importance. He has managed to render ... the true music of American speech, its rhythms, textures,
and odd silences, as well as that beautiful blend of wonderment and wisdom fully in evidence in Travels.  BH Fairchild,
National Book Critics Circle Award For Poetry, 2002